• squirrel •

Meaning: A arboreal rodent with a long, bushy tail, common in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Asia.

Notes: A squirrelly squirrel squirrelling nuts awayToday's Good Word refers to an animal so common that it has acquired an entourage of relatives. Squirrelly started out meaning "like a squirrel", but quickly slid into "crazy, jumpy, nervous". (That is the nickname by which my son the architect calls his older daughter.) This word also was "verbed", as Pogo put it. To squirrel something away is to hide it like squirrels store nuts for the winter, either burying them in the ground or putting them away in their nests.

In Play: Squirrels can be pests in many ways. Here is one way: "The squirrels bury their nuts in my flower bed, and in the spring I must spend all day pulling up walnut sprouts." They can drive you squirrelly if they get into the attic of your house: "Toots Sweet has squirrels in his attic and bats in his belfry."

Word History: Squirrel came to us from Anglo-French esquirel (Modern French écureuil) from Vulgar (street) Latin scuriolus, diminutive of a presumed noun scurius "squirrel". (We have no written evidence of it.) Scurius is a rearrangement of classical Latin sciurus "squirrel", borrowed from Greek skiouros with the same meaning. The Greek word presumably was originally a compound noun made up of skia "shade, shadow" + oura "tail". Squirrels were apparently so named for their habit of standing on their hind legs with their tail curled over their heads. (We are happy that Lynn Flake did not squirrel away today's Good Word, but rather submitted it to our series.)

"The Greek word presumably was originally a compound noun made up of skia "shade, shadow" + oura "tail". Squirrels were apparently so named for their habit of standing on their hind legs with their tail curled over their heads."

Squirrels may take umbrage at these remarks.

From the squirrel's perspective,

human: An tailless nonarboreal biped common in the Americas, Europe, and parts of Asia.

And we must make note of all the preventativedevices out there to keep squirrels out of your birdfeeder.At my house we have one arrogant, peskyone that drives my dog squirrely, and s/he is namedSasquirrel.

I have a book titled "WordPlay" by a Chris Cole. It is a compendium of word facts and trivia. In it, the author claims that the longest one-syllable word in English, at eleven letters, is squirrelled. Now, is this some odd pronunciation, or is it just wrong? Squirrel has two syllables, no?

To boot, my spellchecker doesn't approve of having a double "l". It wants just one. British/American difference?

Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

Squirrel does indeed have two syllables, but some elide the second E; at best, it's a schwa. However, almost everyone jams it all into one syllable when saying "squirreled away". I suppose a poet could choose the necessary number for his rhythm, as Shakespeare certainly did.

Speak for yourself Perry. In Red Neck squirrel has always had one syllable. Ditto for squirreled or squirrelled. Apparently in England they agree with us Red Necks. This is a consistent pattern. Red Neck quarrel also has one syllable. Of course, standard American pronunciation (whatever that is) does give it two syllables but as you suggested many of us elide the second e. We discussed elide recently.